Big Sky Suspends 3 Men's Officials

[zebraman]

Originally Posted by TheOracle

Jeff, being a former West Coast resident, and still having lots of friends there, everyone knows the Big Sky is a joke. The assignor picks pretty people based on how they look physically, in the hopes that she can "train" them. She is so overbearing on the officials that many try directly for the WCC/WAC/Pac-10 and skip the Big Sky on the way up.

No, actually your post is a joke. The Big Sky tryout camp generally sells out in less than an hour. Some incredible refs would give their eye teeth to get into that league. Several excellent Pac-10 officials work the Big Sky.

From what I have heard, the official closest to the play knew the time-out request was well prior to the horn and was choosing to ignore it. To me, that is mistake #1. Many officials have the philosophy to let the horn run out rather than stepping up and making the tough call. I disagree with that philosophy, but I am generally outvoted when that discussion comes up.

Another "philosophy" here on the West Coast with many college officials is to NEVER tell the teams how many time-outs they have. To me, preventative officiating means that we tell the players and the coaches when they come out of their huddle that they are out of time-outs. That usually prevents the nightmare that happened here. But hey, I get outvoted on that one too.

IMO, as long as there are assignors who preach their own philosophies rather than letting players decide games, officials are always going to get themselves into trouble by trying to do what they think their assignors would want rather than just officiating the game that presents itself.

I heard the editor of Referee Magazine speak once and he referred to assignors like that as "power brokers" who think they have a higher vision of what the game should be rather than sticking to the rules. He said it's very damaging to the integrity of the game.